Page 8 of Bearing Secrets
“Plenty of people do that,” Loren shot back.
“Yeah but those people actually loved each other first!” she countered, knowing where her friend was coming from, based on her own personal life.
Natalia’s parents had stayed together until she’d finished her undergrad, before they split; it had apparently been obvious long before then, though, that they were faking it.
“Perhaps.”
“Plus, these aren’t my kids.”
“You and I both know you’ll think of them as such after the first week of working with them.”
Natalia kept her mouth shut. They’d both managed to secure their placement for final year at the same place, working in the children’s ward, and they absolutely viewed the kids as their own, in a sense.
“I can’t believe we’re actually discussing this.”
“Well, do you want to go back home?”
“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly. Home was…just a country. Her parents were gone, her mother passed away from a disease and her father and brother killed in one conflict or another over the years. It wasn’t a pleasant place to be, especially for a pretty young woman. Natalia knew that from first-hand experience.
“Then we go to Para.”
“You want to take me to the fanciest, most exclusive club in town to find a rich husband to sponsor me into the country?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, fuck me.”
“That’s his job.”
Natalia kicked her friend. “Stop it. I hadn’t even thought of that. I’m going to have to sleep with this guy! What if he’s old?”
“Old guys don’t go to clubs. Maybe he’ll just have that yummy salt and pepper hair, a sexy gravelly voice and…oh come on, we’re doing it!”
“You just want to go find someone new.”
“So? Not all of us are prudes.”
“Right. Okay, listen. We can go, but I am not making any promises. We’ll…scope it out. Okay?”
“Okay!” Loren grinned. “It’s gonna be fun, I promise.”
“Yeah, but for who?”
4
The Grand Hallway looked much different than it had a week ago.
For starters, the corpses were gone, the bodies burned and disposed of. Only those who had knowingly died fighting off the traitors were given a ceremony. Everyone else was summarily burned and their ashes dumped into the sewer.
It wasn’t just the lack of bodies, however. The walls had been repaired and repainted. The handful of ruined tapestries had been replaced with others drawn from storage. All in all, Kirell had to admit it was tough to tell there’d been any sort of conflict.
The House was rebuilding itself, in a way, though many of the outer hallways and corridors were still in disrepair, with bloodstains covering their walls and carpets. Not the Grand Hallway though. The Queen of High House Ursa had made it her priority to remove any and all signs of the fighting from there first.
It was necessary, Kirell knew, so that she could put on a calm face, to show both the other members of the House, and any visitors, that everything was fine. In fact, today was to be the first step in proving that to the Ursidae who had assembled there.
Ursidae.The term applied to all his kin. Shifters one and all, capable of taking on the form of ferocious bears, monstrous creatures more suited to a different age on earth than the ones now seen in various documentaries. Bigger, stronger. Meaner.
They should have been united as one. Until recently, they had been. But a coup, led by the disgraced Captain Kven, had attempted to seize power from the rightful King and Queen. They had almost succeeded, killing the King in the opening moments of the rebellion, but the loyal members of the House, such as Kirell, Kellas and others, had fought back and overwhelmed the traitors.
